Needs – A2 Refugee crisis China not go to cuba

Status quo solves – US inspections of rigs

On Christmas Eve, a massive, Chinese-made maritime oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, arrived at Trinidad and Tobago for inspection. The Spanish oil company Repsol YPF, which keeps regional headquarters in Trinidad, ferried it to the Caribbean to perform deep-ocean drilling off Cuba — whose communist government believes as much as 20 billion barrels of crude may lie near the island's northwest coast. But it wasn't Cuban authorities who came aboard the Scarabeo 9 to give it the once-over: officials from the U.S. Coast Guard and Interior Department did, even though the rig won't be operating in U.S. waters. On any other occasion that might have raised the ire of the Cubans, who consider Washington their imperialista enemy. But the U.S. examination of the Scarabeo 9, which Repsol agreed to and Cuba abided, was part of an unusual choreography of cooperation between the two countries. Their otherwise bitter cold-war feud (they haven't had diplomatic relations since 1961) is best known for a 50-year-long trade embargo and history's scariest nuclear standoff. Now, Cuba's commitment to offshore oil exploration — drilling may start this weekend — raises a specter that haunts both nations: an oil spill in the Florida Straits like the BP calamity that tarred the nearby Gulf of Mexico two years ago and left $40 billion in U.S. damages. The Straits, an equally vital body of water that's home to some of the world's most precious coral reefs, separates Havana and Key West, Florida, by a mere 90 miles. As a result, the U.S. has tacitly loosened its embargo against Cuba to give firms like Repsol easier access to the U.S. equipment they need to help avoid or contain possible spills. "Preventing drilling off Cuba better protects our interests than preparing for [a disaster] does," U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida tells TIME, noting the U.S. would prefer to stop the Cuban drilling — but can't. "But the two are not mutually exclusive, and that's why we should aim to do both." Cuba meanwhile has tacitly agreed to ensure that its safety measures meet U.S. standards (not that U.S. standards proved all that golden during the 2010 BP disaster) and is letting unofficial U.S. delegations in to discuss the precautions being taken by Havana and the international oil companies it is contracting. No Cuban official would discuss the matter, but Dan Whittle, senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, who was part of one recent delegation, says the Cubans "seem very motivated to do the right thing."

No Cuban drilling now – rigs have departed.

Drilling not inevitable over the long-term. No reserves in Cuba.

Mary O'Grady (is a member of the editorial board at The Wall Street Journa) WSJ – April 24, 2013 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324474004578442511561458392.html

Remember all the hype about Cuba drilling for oil in Caribbean waters and American companies missing out on the bonanza because of the U.S. embargo? Well, like all the other Cuban get-rich-quick schemes of the past 50 years, this one seems to have flopped too.¶ Last week, Florida's Sun Sentinel reported that "after spending nearly $700 million during a decade, energy companies from around the world have all but abandoned their search for oil in deep waters off the north coast of Cuba near Florida." Separately, CubaStandard.com reported on Friday that "the shallow-water drilling platform used by Russian oil company OAO Zarubezhneft will leave Cuban waters June 1, to be redeployed to Asia."¶ According to the Sun Sentinel story, Jorge Piñon, an oil-industry guru who had been cheering Cuba's exploration attempts, said "Companies are saying, 'We cannot spend any more capital on this high-risk exploration. We'd rather go to Brazil; we'd rather go to Angola; we'd rather go to other places in the world where the technological and geological challenges are less.'"

Squo Solves 2nc

US inspections of Cuban drilling equipment prevents spills – ensures compliance

WSJ 12 (Wall Street Journal, “Cuba - Repsol's Cuba drilling rig complies with safety standards”, 1/10, http://www.bpcplc.com/media-centre/non-company-press-releases/cuba-repsol%27s-cuba-drilling-rig-complies-with-safety-standards.aspx)

U.S. officials said Monday a rig operated by Spain's Repsol YPF that is expected to drill offshore Cuba in the coming months complies with international and U.S. safety standards. 'U.S. personnel found the vessel to generally comply with existing international and U.S. standards by which Repsol has pledged to abide,' the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in the press release. The agency, however, noted that the vessel review 'does not confer any form of certification or endorsement under U.S. or international law' and that the U.S. has no legal or regulatory authority over the rig. The vessel, named Scarabeo 9, was inspected off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago and it will begin drilling a deep-water oil well later this year about 100 kms off the Florida Keys. Repsol, which does business in the U.S., had agreed to let U.S. federal regulators inspect the rig before it enters Cuban waters. The rig's review was aimed at minimizing the possibility of a major oil spill, which would hurt U.S. economic and environmental interests, the regulatory agency said. While aboard the Scarabeo 9, U.S. officials reviewed vessel construction, drilling equipment, and safety systems--including lifesaving and firefighting equipment, emergency generators, dynamic positioning systems, machinery spaces, and the blowout preventer, according to agency. In anticipation of increased drilling activities in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. is in discussions with the Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica and Mexico on a broad range of issues, including drilling safety, ocean modeling, and oil spill preparedness and response, in order to reduce the impact of a major pollution incident, the agency said.

US standards are met – solves the impact

Geman 12 (Ben, “Interior: Cuba-bound drilling rig ‘generally’ meets US standards”, 1/9, http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/203161-interior-cuba-bound-drilling-rig-generally-meets-us-standards)

The deepwater drilling rig that Spanish oil giant Repsol will use for planned oil exploration off Cuba’s coast is getting a clean bill of health from U.S. officials. The United States has no regulatory authority over the drilling, but an Interior Department and Coast Guard team was invited to inspect the Scarabeo 9 rig by Repsol, a check-up that comes as planned drilling off Cuba’s coast draws criticism from several U.S. lawmakers. “The review compared the vessel with applicable international safety and security standards as well as U.S. standards for drilling units operating in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. U.S. personnel found the vessel to generally comply with existing international and U.S. standards by which Repsol has pledged to abide,” the U.S. agencies said in a joint statement Monday upon completion of the review. The U.S. team reviewed drilling equipment, safety systems such as firefighting equipment and the unit’s blowout preventer and other aspects of the rig. A number of U.S. lawmakers critical of the Cuban government have criticized Repsol’s planned project, noting it will bring revenues to the Cuban regime and that a spill could threaten nearby U.S. shores. More on that here, here and here. “The review is consistent with U.S. efforts to minimize the possibility of a major oil spill, which would hurt U.S. economic and environmental interests,” Interior and the Coast Guard said of the inspection, which occurred off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Safe Drilling 2nc

Cuban and non-US prevention efforts are sufficient now.

Richard Sadowski 2011 (is a Class of 2012 J.D. candidate, at Hofstra University¶ School of Law, NY. Mr. Sadowski is also the Managing Editor of Production of¶ the Journal of International Business and Law Vol. XI. “Cuban Offshore Drilling: Preparation and¶ Prevention within the Framework of the United¶ States’ Embargo” – ¶ Sustainable Development Law & Policy¶ Volume 12; Issue 1 Fall 2011: Natural Resource Conflicts Article 10 – http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=sdlp

Fears that Cuban offshore drilling poses serious environmental¶ threats because of the proximity to the United States and¶ the prohibition on U.S. technology transfer are overblown. Cuba¶ has at least as much incentive to ensure safe-drilling practices¶ as does the United States, and reports indicate that Cuba is taking¶ safety seriously.64 Lee Hunt, President of the Houston-based¶ International Association of Drilling Contractors, said, “[t]he¶ Cuban oil industry has put a lot of research, study and thought¶ into what will be required to safely drill,” and that “they are¶ very knowledgeable of international industry practices and have¶ incorporated many of these principles into their safety and regulatory¶ planning and requirements.”65 Thus, while the economic¶ embargo of Cuba restricts American technology from being utilized,¶ foreign sources have provided supplemental alternatives.66

Training and international regulations solve

TC 11 (Television Camaguey, “Cuban Specialists Receive Training on Safe Oil Drilling “, 6/8, http://www.tvcamaguey.co.cu/english/index.php/science-and-technology/35-science/92-cuban-specialists-receive-training-on-safe-oil-drilling-.html)

Cuban specialists who are going to participate in the drilling of deep-water exploratory wells in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico recently participated in courses on safety and environment protection as part of preparations for such activities. A total of 120 Cubans including executives, officials and technicians of enterprises involved in the oil industry participated in three seminars on the topic taught by Norwegian experts. Manuel Marrero, chief oil and gas specialist of the Basic Industry Ministry, told ACN the several-day training is vital to undertake the deep- and ultra-deep-water drillings scheduled to begin in a few months. Current international regulations for this kind of operations are very rigorous in an effort to protect the environment and avoid accidents such as the one that recently occurred in the British Pretroleum platform.

Environment Resilient 2nc

Environment resilient and improving – their authors lie

Dutton 1 (Dr. Dennis, Professor of Philosophy – University of Canterbury (New Zealand), “Greener Than You Think”, The Washington Post, 10-21, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=& contentId=A12789-2001Oct18)

That the human race faces environmental problems is unquestionable. That environmental experts have regularly tried to scare us out of our wits with doomsday chants is also beyond dispute. In the 1960s overpopulation was going to cause massive worldwide famine around 1980. A decade later we were being told the world would be out of oil by the 1990s. This was an especially chilly prospect, since, as Newsweek reported in 1975, we were in a climatic cooling trend that was going to reduce agricultural outputs for the rest of the century, leading possibly to a new Ice Age. Bjorn Lomborg, a young statistics professor and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, knows all about the enduring appeal -- for journalists, politicians and the public -- of environmental doomsday tales, having swallowed more than a few himself. In 1997, Lomborg -- a self-described left-winger and former Greenpeace member -- came across an article in Wired magazine about Julian Simon, a University of Maryland economist. Simon claimed that the "litany" of the Green movement -- its fears about overpopulation, animal species dying by the hour, deforestation -- was hysterical nonsense, and that the quality of life on the planet was radically improving. Lomborg was shocked by this, and he returned to Denmark to set about doing the research that would refute Simon. He and his team of academicians discovered something sobering and cheering: In every one of his claims, Simon was correct. Moreover, Lomborg found on close analysis that the factual foundation on which the environmental doomsayers stood was deeply flawed: exaggeration, prevarications, white lies and even convenient typographical errors had been absorbed unchallenged into the folklore of environmental disaster scenarios.

No Extinction 2nc

Humans will survive despite biodiversity loss

Sagoff 97 (Mark, Senior Research Scholar @ Institute for Philosophy and Public policy in School of Public Affairs @ U. Maryland, William and Mary Law Review, “INSTITUTE OF BILL OF RIGHTS LAW SYMPOSIUM DEFINING TAKINGS: PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE FUTURE OF GOVERNMENT REGULATION: MUDDLE OR MUDDLE THROUGH? TAKINGS JURISPRUDENCE MEETS THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT”, 38 Wm and Mary L. Rev. 825, March, L/N)

Although one may agree with ecologists such as Ehrlich and Raven that the earth stands on the brink of an episode of massive extinction, it may not follow from this grim fact that human beings will suffer as a result. On the contrary, skeptics such as science writer Colin Tudge have challenged biologists to explain why we need more than a tenth of the 10 to 100 million species that grace the earth. Noting that "cultivated systems often out-produce wild systems by 100-fold or more," Tudge declared that "the argument that humans need the variety of other species is, when you think about it, a theological one." n343 Tudge observed that "the elimination of all but a tiny minority of our fellow creatures does not affect the material well-being of humans one iota." n344 This skeptic challenged ecologists to list more than 10,000 species (other than unthreatened microbes) that are essential to ecosystem productivity or functioning. n345 "The human species could survive just as well if 99.9% of our fellow creatures went extinct, provided only that we retained the appropriate 0.1% that we need." n346 [*906] The monumental Global Biodiversity Assessment ("the Assessment") identified two positions with respect to redundancy of species. "At one extreme is the idea that each species is unique and important, such that its removal or loss will have demonstrable consequences to the functioning of the community or ecosystem." n347 The authors of the Assessment, a panel of eminent ecologists, endorsed this position, saying it is "unlikely that there is much, if any, ecological redundancy in communities over time scales of decades to centuries, the time period over which environmental policy should operate." n348 These eminent ecologists rejected the opposing view, "the notion that species overlap in function to a sufficient degree that removal or loss of a species will be compensated by others, with negligible overall consequences to the community or ecosystem." n349 Other biologists believe, however, that species are so fabulously redundant in the ecological functions they perform that the life-support systems and processes of the planet and ecological processes in general will function perfectly well with fewer of them, certainly fewer than the millions and millions we can expect to remain even if every threatened organism becomes extinct. n350 Even the kind of sparse and miserable world depicted in the movie Blade Runner could provide a "sustainable" context for the human economy as long as people forgot their aesthetic and moral commitment to the glory and beauty of the natural world. n351 The Assessment makes this point. "Although any ecosystem contains hundreds to thousands of species interacting among themselves and their physical environment, the emerging consensus is that the system is driven by a small number of . . . biotic variables on whose interactions the balance of species are, in a sense, carried along." n352 [*907] To make up your mind on the question of the functional redundancy of species, consider an endangered species of bird, plant, or insect and ask how the ecosystem would fare in its absence. The fact that the creature is endangered suggests an answer: it is already in limbo as far as ecosystem processes are concerned. What crucial ecological services does the black-capped vireo, for example, serve? Are any of the species threatened with extinction necessary to the provision of any ecosystem service on which humans depend? If so, which ones are they? Ecosystems and the species that compose them have changed, dramatically, continually, and totally in virtually every part of the United States. There is little ecological similarity, for example, between New England today and the land where the Pilgrims died. n353 In view of the constant reconfiguration of the biota, one may wonder why Americans have not suffered more as a result of ecological catastrophes. The cast of species in nearly every environment changes constantly-local extinction is commonplace in nature-but the crops still grow. Somehow, it seems, property values keep going up on Martha's Vineyard in spite of the tragic disappearance of the heath hen. One might argue that the sheer number and variety of creatures available to any ecosystem buffers that system against stress. Accordingly, we should be concerned if the "library" of creatures ready, willing, and able to colonize ecosystems gets too small. (Advances in genetic engineering may well permit us to write a large number of additions to that "library.") In the United States as in many other parts of the world, however, the number of species has been increasing dramatically, not decreasing, as a result of human activity. This is because the hordes of exotic species coming into ecosystems in the United States far exceed the number of species that are becoming extinct. Indeed, introductions may outnumber extinctions by more than ten to one, so that the United States is becoming more and more species-rich all the time largely as a result of human action. n354 [*908] Peter Vitousek and colleagues estimate that over 1000 non-native plants grow in California alone; in Hawaii there are 861; in Florida, 1210. n355 In Florida more than 1000 non-native insects, 23 species of mammals, and about 11 exotic birds have established themselves. n356 Anyone who waters a lawn or hoes a garden knows how many weeds desire to grow there, how many birds and bugs visit the yard, and how many fungi, creepy-crawlies, and other odd life forms show forth when it rains. All belong to nature, from wherever they might hail, but not many homeowners would claim that there are too few of them. Now, not all exotic species provide ecosystem services; indeed, some may be disruptive or have no instrumental value. n357 This also may be true, of course, of native species as well, especially because all exotics are native somewhere. Certain exotic species, however, such as Kentucky blue grass, establish an area's sense of identity and place; others, such as the green crabs showing up around Martha's Vineyard, are nuisances. n358 Consider an analogy [*909] with human migration. Everyone knows that after a generation or two, immigrants to this country are hard to distinguish from everyone else. The vast majority of Americans did not evolve here, as it were, from hominids; most of us "came over" at one time or another. This is true of many of our fellow species as well, and they may fit in here just as well as we do. It is possible to distinguish exotic species from native ones for a period of time, just as we can distinguish immigrants from native-born Americans, but as the centuries roll by, species, like people, fit into the landscape or the society, changing and often enriching it. Shall we have a rule that a species had to come over on the Mayflower, as so many did, to count as "truly" American? Plainly not. When, then, is the cutoff date? Insofar as we are concerned with the absolute numbers of "rivets" holding ecosystems together, extinction seems not to pose a general problem because a far greater number of kinds of mammals, insects, fish, plants, and other creatures thrive on land and in water in America today than in prelapsarian times. n359 The Ecological Society of America has urged managers to maintain biological diversity as a critical component in strengthening ecosystems against disturbance. n360 Yet as Simon Levin observed, "much of the detail about species composition will be irrelevant in terms of influences on ecosystem properties." n361 [*910] He added: "For net primary productivity, as is likely to be the case for any system property, biodiversity matters only up to a point; above a certain level, increasing biodiversity is likely to make little difference." n362 What about the use of plants and animals in agriculture? There is no scarcity foreseeable. "Of an estimated 80,000 types of plants [we] know to be edible," a U.S. Department of the Interior document says, "only about 150 are extensively cultivated." n363 About twenty species, not one of which is endangered, provide ninety percent of the food the world takes from plants. n364 Any new food has to take "shelf space" or "market share" from one that is now produced. Corporations also find it difficult to create demand for a new product; for example, people are not inclined to eat paw-paws, even though they are delicious. It is hard enough to get people to eat their broccoli and lima beans. It is harder still to develop consumer demand for new foods. This may be the reason the Kraft Corporation does not prospect in remote places for rare and unusual plants and animals to add to the world's diet. Of the roughly 235,000 flowering plants and 325,000 nonflowering plants (including mosses, lichens, and seaweeds) available, farmers ignore virtually all of them in favor of a very few that are profitable. n365 To be sure, any of the more than 600,000 species of plants could have an application in agriculture, but would they be preferable to the species that are now dominant? Has anyone found any consumer demand for any of these half-million or more plants to replace rice or wheat in the human diet? There are reasons that farmers cultivate rice, wheat, and corn rather than, say, Furbish's lousewort. There are many kinds of louseworts, so named because these weeds were thought to cause lice in sheep. How many does agriculture really require? [*911] The species on which agriculture relies are domesticated, not naturally occurring; they are developed by artificial not natural selection; they might not be able to survive in the wild. n366 This argument is not intended to deny the religious, aesthetic, cultural, and moral reasons that command us to respect and protect the natural world. These spiritual and ethical values should evoke action, of course, but we should also recognize that they are spiritual and ethical values. We should recognize that ecosystems and all that dwell therein compel our moral respect, our aesthetic appreciation, and our spiritual veneration; we should clearly seek to achieve the goals of the ESA. There is no reason to assume, however, that these goals have anything to do with human well-being or welfare as economists understand that term. These are ethical goals, in other words, not economic ones. Protecting the marsh may be the right thing to do for moral, cultural, and spiritual reasons. We should do it-but someone will have to pay the costs. In the narrow sense of promoting human welfare, protecting nature often represents a net "cost," not a net "benefit." It is largely for moral, not economic, reasons-ethical, not prudential, reasons- that we care about all our fellow creatures. They are valuable as objects of love not as objects of use. What is good for [*912] the marsh may be good in itself even if it is not, in the economic sense, good for mankind. The most valuable things are quite useless.

A2 oil spills

No impact – ocean current trumps proximity – oil will not reach florida keys – the biological hot spots

Emily A. Peterson¶ Daniel J. Whittle, J.D.¶ and Douglas N. Rader, Ph.D¶ December 2012 “Bridging the Gulf¶ Finding Common Ground on Environmental and ¶ Safety Preparedness for Offshore Oil and Gas in Cuba”, http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/EDF-Bridging_the_Gulf-2012.pdf

In assessing the potential threat to U.S. shores, many often reference that Key West, Florida ¶ is a mere 80 miles from the Jaguey prospect site where Repsol drilled in Cuba’s EEZ, north of ¶ Havana, in spring 2012.37 In fact, several other factors—such as the prevailing ocean current, ¶ wind direction and velocity, water temperature, and type of oil spilled — also play critical roles ¶ in determining the direction and speed of spilled oil. Thus, despite the geographic proximity ¶ of the ecologically valuable Florida Keys to the rig site in Cuba, scientists from the National ¶ Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimate that the probability of oil traveling ¶ from a potential blowout at the Repsol rig site to the Florida Keys was comparatively low.38¶ Doug Helton, operations coordinator for the office of response and restoration at NOAA, ¶ emphasized that the dominance of ocean currents can trump distance in influencing the ¶ direction of an oil slick. “The currents are like a conveyor belt at the grocery store,” he told The ¶ Miami Herald.

Oil spill predictions are not accurate

Emily A. Peterson¶ Daniel J. Whittle, J.D.¶ and Douglas N. Rader, Ph.D¶ December 2012 “Bridging the Gulf¶ Finding Common Ground on Environmental and ¶ Safety Preparedness for Offshore Oil and Gas in Cuba”, http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/EDF-Bridging_the_Gulf-2012.pdf

While areas at risk of immediate impact appear to be those along the Straits of Florida and ¶ U.S. south Atlantic coast, scientists are careful to note that the models are far from precise, ¶ authoritative forecasts. NOAA specialists themselves emphasize that the models vary significantly based on weather data and location of the drilling site. Richard Sears, who served as chief ¶ scientific advisor on the federal commission that investigated the Deepwater Horizon disaster, ¶ stressed there was significant uncertainty in projecting the path of the BP oil slick in 2010, even ¶ with the combined technical expertise of federal agencies and private companies.42¶ “There were a wide array of models surrounding the BP spill, ranging from most of the ¶ Oil projected to come ashore to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida—to a significant ¶ portion going out through the Straits of Florida and up the East Coast towards North Carolina,” ¶ Sears said in a personal interview. “Neither of those happened.”43¶ Sears described the added complexity of estimating the oil’s vertical movement. “There were ¶ a lot of surprises with Macondo about where the oil went,” Sears explained, “not only in two ¶ dimensions, but also in terms of three dimensional impacts within the water column.”44¶ Preparing for a potential spill in Cuba’s EEZ highlights the underlying uncertainty in ¶ predicting the trajectory of a spill, particularly with regards to possible shoreline impacts ¶ andbiological threats within the water column and on the seafloor. This lack of predictability ¶ reinforces the importance of opening lines of communication and expanding U.S.-Cuban ¶ cooperation to ensure that any containment and response strategy would be implemented ¶ effectively using the most timely incident updates.

A2 sanctions block US spill assistance

Sanctions won’t block US safety response – Helix proves.

Erika Bolstad McClatchy Newspapers – May 10, 2012 – http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/10/148433/cuba-embargo-could-threaten-oil.html#.UaoUWpyADq0

Several of the experts said Thursday they are confident that the Treasury Department could react quickly in an emergency to allow U.S. oil response teams to get emergency permits to do business with the Cuban government.¶ The department, which oversees the embargo, has authorized an American firm, Helix Energy Solutions, to handle spill response for Repsol. It’s a red-tape ordeal that company officials said they’ll have to repeat when working with the other companies that have contracted to use the same rig next in Cuban waters.

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